Middle School Students Plant Trees at Highway Garage

By Caitlin Kimball

On April 18, all the students of cluster 6D were comfy and cozy in their warm clothes.

They stepped off the school bus at the Newtown Highway Department with a shovel in hand. All the students took their three-year-old white pine trees and began to dig. Each of the 94 students planted four trees that day.

With the help of Mr and Mrs DeBenedetto, Miss Stevens, Mrs Pollard, Mrs Jackman, Mrs Kovacs, and their science teacher, Mrs Holda-Vaccaro, they planed the trees perfectly.

Before their planting crusade, they viewed the movie, The Man Who Planted Trees. The movie showed how one man could make so many people happy by planting trees. The man, in this true story, planted a forest, which brought many good places to live for families to come.

With the push from that movie, all the students planted the trees with no complaints. In fact, they had fun!

Liz Gugino, a student, said, “When I planted trees, I got to know about nature better. Teamwork was a big part of planting the trees. It was extremely fun, but dirty.”

We all had fun adding one more year to Mrs Holda-Vaccaro’s 5th annual community service project. So, in a couple of years, go by the Newtown High Department and look at their spectacular trees!

(Caitlin Kimball is a sixth grade student at the middle school.)